


A Story About the Time Pam and Karen Got Their Nails Done and Maybe Had a Little Sex

by TrisB



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-21
Updated: 2007-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB





	A Story About the Time Pam and Karen Got Their Nails Done and Maybe Had a Little Sex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/gifts).



Ever since Jim got rid of Andy and confessed to his continuing thing for Pam, he's been kind of insufferable. His messing with other guys in the office was pretty insufferable, too, but it was also funny, and sometimes satisfying; with Andy gone and Dwight still novel to have back, Jim doesn't have anyone to annoy but Karen. This is especially annoying because the reason he's annoying is that he's trying so damn hard to dissuade her from dumping him and going back to Connecticut, without ever actually saying that's what he's doing. It seems sad somehow that a consummate prankster's worst trick comes when he's trying to be sincere, and if there were an out-of-body Jim to see himself in action, she knows that he'd agree with her.

"Can you not be so pathetic?" Karen says to him one night on the phone in response to his bleaty "Can you at least try to understand?"

The next day Roy enters the office to supposedly get some soda and really to check Pam out, by which she's obviously embarrassed and Jim is just as obviously anguished. Karen sort of feels like walking out of the office and trying to see if she can work out the details of her transfer via cell phone with Jan on the train home, but that would be pretty lame so instead she goes over to Pam's desk, smiles at Roy as he leaves the room, and asks her what place in Scranton gives good manicure.

"Uh," says Pam. "There was one place that I used to go to, but I haven't been there for a while." She wiggles her naked nails.

"You should go," says Karen. "I know it sounds pretty stupid, but getting your nails done is really nice when you need a break."

 _"Get a manicure! Get your hair did!"_

Karen ignores Michael and says to Pam, "How about Saturday afternoon, you and me? Girls day."

 _"Keep your eyes on my ba-rub-a-dub-dump!"_

Pam beams uncertainly up at Karen. "Saturday Girls Day," she agrees.

Karen kind of regrets it later when Dwight gets cast as "that one little white girl" in Michael's skit portraying the best of Missy Elliott, held in the conference room with polyphonic ring tone accompaniment, but her nails are getting kind of scuzzy, so hopefully it should be worth it.

To borrow a phrase.

Pam arrives on Saturday around noon; Karen answers the door and beckons to her coffee table, where her laptop is open and loading Google's directory of every nail place in town.

"Wow, and I was just going to drive around low-rent shopping centers and park at the first Pretty Lady Angel Flower Salon we found."

"No, Pam," Karen replies seriously. "There is a system, and we are here to exploit it. What do you think about Nail Trix?"

"Well, what don't I think? With the X, I mean, it's just so...evocative."

"True. Hey, Misstique Hair Designs."

Pam pets her split ends. "I think we'll work up to that level of fanciness. Right now I'm really in more of a Clel's Place place."

"Pam, don't ever say anything like that ever again."

"I'm so sorry," Pam says, and ducks to swallow a giggle, her forehead dipping into a dust-filled shaft of sunlight.

They end up settling on Beauty Shop The, for reasons that are both obvious and quite possibly predicated on moral duty; the movie discussion beginning with _The Usual Suspects_ — neither of them having ever seen it before the entire world saw fit to ruin the twisty ending for them — because of the salon's location on Keyser Avenue lasts for the entire drive over. "The Beauty Shop" is painted on the window, to both their disappointment, but they go in anyway, and in the spirit of Saturday Girls Day, each ask for a pedicure they probably don't need.

"Hey," says Karen as they settle into their massive back-vibrating foot-bathing pedicure chairs, "Spending money self-indulgently is fun. I think I'll buy a pony."

"Neat," Pam replies vaguely. "My chair massager thingy is hurting me."

"Yeah, it's kind of the opposite of relaxing, isn't it? Here, let me." She holds her hand out to Pam's expectantly, and is given the chair's remote control; adjusts the settings one by one, watching Pam's expression to see what works for her and what doesn't. "How's that?"

"Mmm." Pam's eyes flutter closed and her feet, submerged in the bubbling bath, seem to kick a little involuntarily. Karen has never seen her look so relaxed, which makes sense since they work where they do, but she's also never realized how worried Pam's expression is by default. The lights in Pam's bath glow neon green and reflect all the way up. Karen looks down into her tub. The lights in this one are rosy pink.

It's always been Karen's opinion that the best part of getting a pedicure is to zone out completely and chat as little as possible with the person touching your feet. It's probably a little rude, yeah, but whatever, it's also a paid service. Today, however, is different, and she drifts in and out of conversation with Pam, feeling cozy and content to have a stranger rubbing her sore calves with aloe vera lotion until she barely recognizes them as her own. She learns that Pam's "not for a while" last manicure was the day of her first engagement party with Roy four years ago, and returning to the subject of ponies, Pam always wanted to have one named Giselle.

"Really? I think I'd go for...Paul. Maybe Stephen. You know."

Pam laughs and says, "That is so something Jim would say."

"Fuck," she replies without thinking. "Sorry, I'm kinda mad at him right now." Pam raises an eyebrow but doesn't ask; has probably forgotten how. "But anyway, can Halpert do _this_?" She shimmies in her seat, shaking her breasts.

"Probably not," Pam rules after a moment. "Though after seeing that I'm sure he'd give it his best shot."

The entire exchange has been joking and pleasant, but still, the conversation lulls back into silence for the next several minutes, until Pam remarks despairingly on the whiteness of her legs, and praises Karen's tanner skin.

"Thanks, I tried hard."

"Did you really?"

"No."

Karen's manicurist gives her a dirty look as she squirms a bit in her seat.

After their nails are dry it's still only half-past one, so they have lunch at some overpriced new microbrewery, quickly learning that the slightly buzzed feeling they shared after an hour with the bath, massage, and fumes really didn't need a pint each of amber ale to exacerbate it. They wander around the area on foot until Pam feels okay to drive back to Karen's, where they enter just in time to hear her landline — "I don't even know why I'm paying for that thing." "I know, me too!" — ring and go to message. Karen mutes the machine firmly and gets out the schnapps and rum. "If Saturday Girls Day is not a time to get drunk in the afternoon, what is?"

"There is no time better," Pam solemnly confirms. "Hey, do you have any games?"

Drinking Scrabble's rules are a little blurry. At first they plan to have point values assigned to fingers of alcohol, then it's sort of "make a word, drink some booze," then it's mostly leaning against the corduroy of the couch, messing up the game with their legs as they kiss. Karen doesn't think Pam has ever made out with a girl before, and tries to make it memorable when she remembers, which isn't often. Pam's hands come up to delicately hover around Karen's shoulders and jaw, and it's stupidly surprising how soft they are, how silky the manicure has made Pam's skin. She has tiny little teeth and a hot, steady pulse. The phone rings again, and again, and again. They stop kissing long enough to look at it, the ruined Scrabble game, and each other, which is then long enough for Jim to finish his inaudible message on the landline and try again on Karen's cell. She throws it against the wall with unintended force, and Pam watches her, hair all askew.

"Yeah, it's not gonna happen," Karen finally says, and does the boob shimmy again.

As it turns out, Saturday Girls Night is even more relaxing than Saturday Girls Day; beer before liquor turned out to be just as bad as the rhyme would have it, but the phone stopped ringing hours ago.


End file.
